Beinecke MS 543
Northern France, s. XV 2
Jacques Milet, Histoire de la destruction de Troye la grant

1. ff. 1r-5r	Cy commence l'ystoire de Troye [title in the upper margin]. En passant par une 
lande / Plaine de roses et de fleurs, / De roamarin et de lavande, / D'aubespine et toutes couleurs, 
/ Pour entreoublier mes douleurs ... En requerant d'unble pencee / Qu'on preigne en bon 
entendement / L'ystoire par moy disposee, / Dont s'ensuyt le commancement. Cy fine le 
prologue. 

Prologue to art. 2.

2. ff. 5r-382r + 383-386	S'ensuyt l'ystoire de la destruction de Troye la grant, translatee de 
latin en francoys, mise par personnaiges, composee par maistre Jacques Millet, estudiant en loys 
en la ville d'Orleans, commancant l'an mil CCCC L, le second jour du moys de septembre. Et 
commence a parler le roy Priam. Priam : [O] desses et dieux, / Parfais et glorieux, / De bon cueur 
vous mercye ...  Or a este premierement  / Par les Troyens ravye Helene, / Et puis les Grecz mis en 
grant paine / Et Troye arse finablement. Explicit historia destructionis Troiane. Iohannes 
/////////////////////////////////////. La grant ville de Troye avoit troys journees de long et autant de large ... 
Le nombre dez roys et ducz de Grece qui alerent assieger ladite ville fut LXIX mille sans 
Palamides, lequel vint apres. Le nombre des nefz fut mille  IIc et XII. Nomen scriptoris Iohannes 
plenus amoris.

Jacques Milet, Histoire de la destruction de Troye la grant.  A stage-play on the Trojan War. M.R. 
Jung, ed., ?? A list of the manuscripts containing this work is given by the
same in Melanges Jean 
Rychner (Strasbourg, 1978), pp.?? The right order of the leaves at the end is: 381, 383, 384, 385, 
386, 382.

3. ff. 382v + 387r-389v	Jason et Hercules vers Colcos s'en alloient, / A l'un des portz de 
Troye reffreschir se vouloient, / Mais tost lez fist partir le roy Lermedon, / Dont puis Troye fut 
arse et luy mort sanz pardon ... La fleurs dez chevaliers Hector a plusieurs foiz / De droicturier 
fait d'armes tua 30 roys. / Achilles fut vaillant, bel arme et vestu, / Mes ses  vices villains 
souillerent ses vertu. Explicit. Scriptor qui scripsit cum Christo vivere possit. - Chanson.	ff. 
390-391  blank

Unpublished fifteenth-century poem in alexandrines known as L'abrege selon Daire et Dithis or 
L'abrege de Troie. Apparently this text should have been followed by a song, which was never 
entered.


Parchment and paper, ff. II (paper) + 391 + II (paper), 270 x 195 mm. The lower margin of f. 41 
is cut off. Watermark??

I-XIX 20 (ff. 1-380), XX 12 (- 11, ff. 381-391).  In quires I-XIX the outer and the inner bifolium 
are parchment, in quire XX the outer bifolium only (f. 391 was originally a paste-down).

The ruling consists only of a vertical bounding-line traced in crayon at the left of the one-column 
text area. 36-42 lines written in campo aperto.

Written by a single scribe (see below) in Gothica Semihybrida Libraria/Formata (Bastarda). The 
initial of the verse on the top line is lengthened into a calligraphic initial, occasionally  with 
grotesque or fish decoration. Ascenders on the top line may offer a similar treatment. Staging 
instructions are written in a smaller size of the same script.

All majuscules at the beginning of verses are heightened in red. On f. 1r  5-line foliate initial and 
four-margins rinceaux border with acanthus leaves in the four corners and in the middle of the 
outer section. The border is separated from the text by a broad bar in blue, red and gold.

Binding s. XVIII:, sprinkled brown leather over cardboard boards, the spine gold-tooled. On the 
spine a red title-label with the inscription "HISTOIR. DE LA DESTRUC. DE TROY LA 
GRANDE" and a green (?) one with the inscription "P. PERSONAG SUR VEL. DU 15 
SIECLE". Marbled endleaves. Gilt edges.

In a trumpet-shaped frame issuing from the mouth of a grotesque in the initial on the top line of 
f. 62 v "de Nuys" is inscribed. This is probably the scribe's name, which in combination with the 
colophon should be completed to Jean or Iohannes de Nuys. The colophon formula indicating the 
scribe's name as "Iohannes plenus amoris" is typical of the Anglo-Norman domain and in a 
smaller degree of France, but is essentially to be found in manuscripts containing French texts; 
see L. Reynhout, Formules latines de colophons v. 1, Bibliologia 25A (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 186-
194. There is a fifteenth-century monastic scribe in Trier and Groningen with the name Iohannes 
de  Nussya or Iohannes Nussye (from Neuss, Western Germany; Colophons 10793-10800), but 
his handwriting is very different from the script in MS 543. Perhaps our scribe is identical with J. 
du Ny, who copied Paris, B.N.F. MS fr. 55: see Bradley v. 2, p. 372; Colophons 7438; L. Delisle, 
Le Cabinet des manuscrits, v. 1 (Paris, 1868), p. 87. On f. 391r, next to pen-trials, designs of 
pointing hands, etc., the verses "Qui ce livre trouvera / Pro[p]ter suam maliciam / Au gibet 
pendu sera / Repugnando superbiam. / Au gibet sera sa maison / Coram suis parentibus, / Car ce 
sera tres bien raison : / Exemplum dabit omnibus " (s. XV) and various cancelled contemporary 
ownership inscriptions ; amongst others : "  Ce livre est Jehanne Po///////// femme de honnorable 
 homme et maistres Jacques P//////// advocat ou parlement /////"; uncancelled the names " Jehan  
Poignand " and " Jehanne Poignande ". Collection of Robert Lang of Portland Place (1750-
1828). Bought in 1828 at the Robert Lang sale by Sir Thomas Phillipps (MS 3658); see A.N.L. 
Munby, Phillipps Studies v. 3 (Cambridge, 1954), p. 55. Purchased from H.P. Kraus in New York 
on 23 January 1974 with funds from the E.J. Beinecke Trust.

Albert Derolez

Updated 29.11.2007